Pain
by ValkyrieCaine
Summary: This is the epiloge of eclipse from Leah Clearwater's point of view. Read! Enjoy! Comment! But be nice - it's my first story... Oh yeah: Unfortunately I don't own any of the characters... I wish!


"Jacob, do you think this is going to take much longer?" I demanded.

I'd had enough. A few times, okay, I could bear that – it wasn't like I didn't slip sometimes and thought about… well, anyway, that would be normal. But for the past month, I'd found myself dreaming of Isabella Swan _every single night_. And that was way over the top. I had to talk to Jacob Black, and I had to do it _now_.

I had found him, as I knew I would, at the edge of the cliffs, where he came almost every day now, to be alone, to wallow in self-pity and the pain that he was stubbornly refusing to leave behind. I didn't feel bad for interrupting his wallowing – instead I felt a furious kind of pleasure: I knew how they all thought of me, I could look at myself through their eyes, could see the bad, bitter, permanently scowling person I was to them, and, taking that into account, they totally deserved my treatment

Jacob's teeth clenched together audibly at my words and I almost smiled smugly, until I realized that he was controlling his anger perfectly. I scowled instead. Of course I knew that Jake was a natural. After less than a year, he was at the point that… the others… had needed ages to reach. He was in far better control of his phasing than I was, and that annoyed me. But then, I thought condescendingly, who wants to be a natural at being a _werewolf_?

"Jump off a cliff, Leah," Jacob said in an obnoxiously calm voice, pointing suggestively at the one beneath him.

"Really, kid." I sat down on the dry weeds next to him. "You have no idea how hard this is for me!"

He stared at me incredulously. Like he was the only one who could have any problems right now. "For _you_?" he asked.

'_Yes, for me, you idiot!' _I wanted to scream at him. _'Not only does it make concentrating very difficult during work if we have to constantly share first your __disgusting fantasies and now __your irrational mourning__, but we're starting to feel them ourselves! And, er, hello! I'm a _girl_, in case you hadn't noticed!__ I do not want to love Isabella Swan__ and I'm not putting up with it anymore__"_

I shouted all that furiously inside my head, while Jacob let off a big lecture about how self-absorbed I was. _'Yeah, right! __Hear who's talking!__' _I thought, hating him, hating my whole rotten, painful, much too long life.

"Just look at this from my perspective for a minute, okay?" I tried to reason with him, fighting to keep my voice even.

Abruptly and unbelievably, the annoyed, incredulous expression left his face and he _laughed_. It sounded unnatural and pained, yeah, but he was definitely _laughing_. Clearly, he wasn't taking me one bit seriously. It's just so irritating, the way the boys in the pack keep acting like their totally grown-up. Even my stupid brother and he's, like, 4 years younger than me. I mean, sure, Jacob _looked_ twenty-something, but he was still just 16, for God's sake – and behaving that way, too!

"Stop snorting and pay attention," I scolded him.

"If I pretend to listen, will you leave?" he mused, glancing at me quickly – glancing at the scowl that I had fixed permanently onto my face to hide the burning pain that was bubbling right there, beneath the calm surface, fighting to burst through my unemotional mask. I wouldn't allow it. If Jacob was a natural at controlling his phasing, I was one at repressing my feelings, hiding my thoughts from the pack, always with me, right there in my head.

I knew exactly what Jacob was thinking right now – he wasn't as good at concealing his thoughts, and this was something that was permanently on his mind when he looked at me in his wolf form – something that was on all of their minds… I didn't care, though; what was it to me if they didn't think I was pretty, anymore? That they didn't like me? It had been a long time since I had been able to look into a mirror and be content with the way I looked. Obviously, I knew now, why… why Sam_ - _it hurt to think even his name and I scowled more fiercely to hide the wave of pain that washed over me – why Sam had chosen Em over me, why he had left me and gone back on all the promises he'd made. That it wasn't about Emily's beauty, or my lack of it, that it wasn't about me at all, but rather due to some power, some magic that was out of anyone's control… But before my transformation, I had spent months trying to figure out what it was about her that I didn't have; I didn't want to… I _couldn't_ believe that Sam didn't love me anymore, because of some flaw in my personality. Instead, I had come to the unreasonably less painful conclusion that he was attracted to my cousin's looks, rather than her character.

It ached to think about all this, so I started babbling, realizing while I talked how stupid I was sounding and that I hadn't actually planned to confess the kissing thing. So I couldn't even fully blame Jacob for sighing "Do I care?"

But I was angry now – fury was my best painkiller – and it felt good to take it out on him. "I can't stand being in your head anymore!" I told him hotly. "Get over her already! She's going to _marry_ that thing. He's going to try to change her into one of them! Time to move on, boy." I knew it was horrible, reminding him of the one thing that he was obviously most afraid of. I knew that he really did love Bella Swan, even if couldn't understand. And I knew that I'd never feel one ounce of remorse for what I was doing.

"Shut _up_," Jacob snarled and the badly concealed pain in his voice was strangely comforting – at least I wasn't the only one who had to suffer. That wasn't the real reason for my next words, though: More than anything, I was curious. It would be an interesting experiment to find out how much I could provoke him before he lost his temper, I thought. "He'll probably just kill her anyway. All the stories say that happens more often than not," I said quickly, working a taunting edge into my voice and watching his face closely. "Maybe a funeral will be better closure than a wedding. Ha," I added, for the effect.

It worked. I saw his hands shaking, the all-too familiar tremor running down his spine: his body detaching itself from the conscious mind, reacting to the fury in its very own way… He closed his eyes and it was all he could do to keep himself from bursting into a gigantic wolf right there. I wasn't one bit scared, though – I was more than able to fight Jacob. Maybe the gray wolf that was half of my self was smaller than the russet one that Jacob could phase into but I was still strong and fast – stronger and faster than any 18 year old girl had ever been. They underestimated me, but one day I'd show them all…

No, I wasn't scared. More than anything, I was pleased. When Jacob opened his eyes, the trembling in his hands slowly subsiding, I was smiling angelically.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, obviously thinking very hard about something. "If you're worried about gender confusion, Leah . . ." he began slowly. I had no idea what he was getting at. "How do you think the rest of us like looking at Sam through your eyes? It's bad enough that Emily has to deal with _your_ fixation. She doesn't need us guys panting after him, too."

I couldn't describe how much that hurt. It wasn't the fact that Jacob thought and said something like that; if it had just been a stupid lie to provoke me, I could have lived with it. The truth was that I never _had_ gotten over Sam. The fact that he wouldn't… couldn't ever return to me – the hopelessness – only made it worse. Unbearable. People had called us high school sweethearts but it had always been more, for me at least. I had truly loved Sam and I couldn't even blame him for turning my life into hell. Because I _still_ loved him – and now it turned out that everyone knew. I could act as much as I wanted, but I hadn't fooled anybody. Natural, indeed. That knowledge made the pain flare up fiercely, and for a moment it was impossible to hold the scowling mask in place – it slipped from my face, revealing that I was, after all, still human, but also betraying me, betraying what I thought I had managed to hide for so long.

I replaced the mask long enough to spit furiously in Jacob's direction, then I turned and ran towards the forest, shaking all over, hot tremors running down my spine, red clouding my vision where it wasn't obscured by tears. I didn't try to control myself – I was glad, for once, when my body exploded into a creature that could bear the pain. I was racing away on four legs long before the tears could well over.


End file.
